


Bad Faith

by deliarium



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Incest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-22 19:45:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2519609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deliarium/pseuds/deliarium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Francis has never prided himself on being strong of will.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad Faith

Charles is barely managing the walk back from Richard's dormitory, dragging slippery heels slowly and precariously along the ice-caked path. His ragged, whiskey-scented breaths undulate into the air in cloudy bursts; the drowsy weight of his upper body sags heavily against Francis's arm as he staggers on, eyes half-lidded and glassy. Francis steadies him with one hand held to the small of his back and smokes anxiously with the other, the cigarette quivering between his frost-nipped fingers. A frigid gust of wind blasts directly into his face, making his eyes swim momentarily behind his pince-nez, and he rapidly blinks the flakes from his lashes, letting the cigarette fall and be carried away in a passing whirl of snow.

Charles draws his scarf up over his mouth, shivering violently and muttering an indistinct curse. Francis glances at him from the corner of his eye, not daring to look at the other boy head-on. Glistening flecks of snow have dusted over Charles's blond hair, wisps of it sweeping around his flushed face like a golden, shimmering corona. In the faded, wintry morning light he wavers like some sort of hostile apparition, pale and glowing.

But there is only one ghost haunting them at present. Francis still half-expects Bunny's leering, Banquo-like spectre to jump out and confront them around every corner, hair flopping about and that gruesome trickle of blood running down in a gash from his mouth. _Didn't think ya could get rid of me that easily, did you, deerslayers?_

Francis would almost cheerfully agree to murder him again, if they were forced to do it over...but it doesn't make the memory any less unpleasant.

They arrive at Francis's apartment after what seems to Francis an eternity, without having exchanged so much as fifteen words between them the whole route, and silently relieve themselves of their outerwear. Charles wobbles about the kitchen with a hand placed on the counter for balance, clearly still drunk, while Francis starts preparing some coffee, softly blowing on his cuticles to warm his numb fingers.

"I told you. Coffee isn't going to work," Charles says, sniffling into his arm.

"This is for me," Francis replies brusquely, pulling out several mugs from one of the cabinets. "I've been up all night. You haven't eaten anything recently, have you?" By recently, of course, he means since Bunny had gasped his last breath, down by that ravine. But he needn't be quite so indelicate.

Charles sighs, unwinding his scarf from his neck. "No. Just some saltine crackers."

Francis opens a few more cabinets, mostly devoid of anything edible. He plucks out an orange from a basket, sniffs at it appraisingly, shrugs, and hands it over to Charles. "Here. Eat this."

An uncomfortable interim of silence follows, ruptured only by the bubbling of coffee in the pot. At one point Francis becomes keenly aware of Charles's eyes riveted on him, though he seems absorbed in one of his moody spells that Francis knows it would useless to talk him out of. Trying to steady his trembling hands, he pours himself a steaming mugful of coffee and stirs in the milk. He fills a mug for Charles as well, pushing it over towards him. Charles sways himself over to the counter, still lethargically peeling away at his orange, and hunches half-over it on his elbow. They drink in tense silence for a while longer, eyes averted, listening to the sound of the wind mournfully whistling against the panes.

Francis doesn't know if it's the fault of the coffee, or the alcohol, or perhaps neither, but his nerves are starting to become even more jittery than before. Charles's presence, rather than being comforting, is only heightening his agitated state. That aborted little dalliance earlier that night with Richard had left Francis's libido terribly unsatisfied, and he finds himself stealing sidelong glances over at Charles. Suddenly remembering things – an unbidden deluge of images and sensations that he'd tried to suppress among the turmoil of the last several months, to little avail.

Interspersed between the wide gaps in his memory of what had happened that one night – during the bacchanal, when the flames of Dionysian madness had swept over them all like wildfire – there remain fleeting, but vivid, impressions, magnified all the more against the dreamlike haze swathing everything else that had transpired. Charles in the forest clearing, moonlight streaming off his skin and a tangled cobweb of leaves and twigs matted in his hair, prowling about like some striking woodland creature. Francis had watched nearby, idling, as Charles shoved Henry’s bulky frame off Camilla with a primal, uncharacteristic aggression and fucked her himself, their beautiful pale bodies rocking in synchronistic motion against the dirt and foliage. And it had seemed perfectly natural, somehow, in that particular setting, where no such concept as taboo seemed to exist and all civilized conventions broke down entirely.

And Francis also has vague, distorted recollections of him and Charles tumbling together into the bushes, thorns biting at their skin, Charles's teeth sinking like razors into Francis's neck as he growled something in harsh, incoherent Greek. Francis's hands streaking crimson stripes down Charles's back as he let himself be claimed – be lifted up onto some gloriously transcendent plane of being – as the world burst into a blinding conflagration of colors around them. The memory of it, fragmented as it is, incites a strange, not entirely unpleasant tremor down his spine, accompanied by other visceral reactions; he grasps the handle of his mug a little tighter, grateful for the relatively dim lighting.

Normally he would try to stifle these base urges, especially when it comes to Charles...but they are immensely preferable to dwelling on the events of the prior afternoon.

He drums his restless fingers noisily on the countertop, desperately wishing he had a cigarette – he'd smoked the last of his pack on the walk over.

"Stop that," Charles says abruptly, irritated. He reaches as if to punch Francis's shoulder but misses, his arm instead falling in a graceless, sluggish arc. He really _is_ quite drunk. Francis would find it endearing – in an overly sentimental way that must be the effect of the alcohol stirring in him as well – if he weren't so thoroughly on edge at the moment.

"Sorry. I'm afraid I'm just a little wound up still," Francis replies, giving a tiny, deprecatory cough and then nervously rubbing his hands together.

"Well then, go take a nap or something. Julian is bound to suspect something's up if you come to class all jumpy."

"Can't sleep. When I shut my eyes all I see is – " Francis shudders. "I just need to keep my mind distracted, that's all."

"Is that why you were in such a hurry to get Richard into bed with you tonight?" Charles asks. He lifts the rim of his mug to his mouth to take a sip from it, his expression opaque.

Francis opens his mouth to counter with some withering remark, closes it, and settles on merely arching an eyebrow, coolly derisive.

"Oh, don't play dumb. I have eyes, you know," Charles snaps, his voice starting to rise. "I could guess what you were trying to do to poor Richard back there – advancing on him like that, like he's some kind of _toy_ for your sick amusement – "

"I'll have you know Richard was surprisingly receptive," Francis replies coldly, setting down his cup with a slightly too harsh _bang_. He suddenly realizes that he is trembling even harder now, his pulse beating a rapid staccato in his wrist. "I'd probably be in bed with him right this minute, if you hadn't barged in. And maybe he would have even _remembered_ it afterwards."

Whether or not the shot had made its mark, Charles doesn't flinch. "You fucking Richard," he says tonelessly after a pause, and he drains the rest of his coffee in one gulp. " _That's_ a laugh."

Francis doesn't see anything laughable about it. Granted, Richard has always been (obviously) keen on Camilla – he and Charles have that much in common, at least. Not that Francis had ever found that the least bit of a deterrent. His sharp instincts – which were almost never wrong when it came to ferreting out sexual prospects – had informed him that Richard was, in all likelihood, just about as straight as Charles was. Which was to say, rather conditionally.

"If you wanted to get your mind off what happened yesterday, you could've just called me," Charles says, suddenly rather quiet; Francis blinks and lifts his head, but Charles is looking elsewhere, his arms crossed. The malice has vanished from his voice, and he mostly sounds exhausted, oddly faraway. "God knows _I've_ been trying to distract myself, ever since."

Francis stares, at a temporary loss for words, as he tries vainly to decipher the inscrutable expression painted in the other boy's weary, drunken eyes. Despite their years of friendship – and that is all it is, Francis has resigned himself to that fact long ago – Charles has always retained an indefinable mystique that made him impossible to fully predict. Perhaps that was part of the allure, the same ethereal charm that drove men wild over his sister, yet with Charles seemed to also suggest a hidden, more insidious sort of darkness. A darkness Francis had found intensely captivating at first, until the day he realized it had the power to burn him as well.

And yet somehow...beneath Charles's sullen exterior, Francis thinks he can detect a glimmering note of –  _hurt_ – that Francis hadn't immediately come to Charles first. Born out of pride, perhaps, if not out of genuine attachment. It's awfully presumptuous, considering Charles made a point of never humoring Francis's overtures when he was sober.

"I didn't think of calling you," Francis says finally, which is untrue.

Charles looks at him intently, for a long moment. Then he – slowly, unsteadily – tilts forward, resting his elbow on the edge of the counter, and brushes his lips against Francis's (which open of their own accord, traitorously compliant). "Liar," he chuckles softly, the charge imbued with equal parts amusement and affection, as Francis emits a small, incriminating noise from the back of his throat. He touches his fingertips to Francis's cheek with a lazy tenderness, almost a caress...and Francis can feel himself falling again, his heart pounding wildly and the earth crumbling underfoot as he dips his head down for another, crushing kiss, longer and more urgent, tasting the bitter intermingling of coffee and whiskey on Charles's tongue. His shaking hands fall to Charles's waist, bracketing his hips and pulling him close; he hears Charles moan impatiently in response, clutching at Francis's fiery hair and grinding hard against Francis's erection. A distant corner of Francis's mind reproaches himself for his weakness – for giving Charles what he wants yet again, for leaving his own heart so repeatedly vulnerable to capture, to being rent asunder.

But Francis has never prided himself on being strong of will, and every now and then the thought occurs to him that it may very well be his downfall someday. He casts it aside, as easily as the Trojans in dismissing Cassandra's portentous ravings, and proceeds to immerse himself in the simple pleasure of kissing Charles – a terrible, intoxicating sweetness that is all at once ferocious and blazing and sharp.

"You're the one I want," he breathes heavily into Charles's neck moments later, when they're undressed and sweatily entwined on Francis's bed. Charles doesn't respond quite in words, lavishing coaxing little kisses on Francis's shoulder, nicking and bruising the skin with his teeth. He's a bit rougher than usual, though Francis doesn't mind.

For someone who professes such a conveniently faulty memory when drunk, Charles seems well acquainted with the spots that make Francis cry out and writhe, pressing his lips to them with unerring ease. Right now, Francis can even ignore that Charles is possibly only fucking him to forget the blood on their hands; for the moment, at least, it doesn't matter. The world outside might be bleak and miserable – Bunny's icy corpse might still be lying around that ravine, encased within a shroud of snow – but Charles's body is lovely and warm and thrillingly alive against his, blocking out all other thought.

And as Charles kneels over him, slightly clumsy and brash from all the alcohol coursing through him, and yet still somehow managing to be darkly alluring ("Beautiful," Francis marvels in a low, half-reverent murmur, twining his fingers through Charles's hair, "so beautiful"), Francis knows too well that any semblance of control he might have now is ultimately illusory – that at Charles's slightest beckoning he'll beg, worship, scream, do anything.

 

 

  
The very first time they'd slept together – even now, years later, Francis can conjure up the scene in his head quite vividly – it had been pouring heavily outside. The wind had been howling through the trees, sheets of rain sluicing against the walls of the country house, the occasional crack of lightning splintering across the sky. This had put an unfortunate damper on the twins' picnic plans, and Charles had wound up knocking on Francis's door that evening, armed with a stack of Greek readings and a plentiful supply of liquor.

As a freshman and a relative newcomer to Julian's class, Charles had still regarded Francis then with a bashful mixture of awe and trepidation, a reticence that quickly diminished whenever alcohol came into play. Francis, for his part, was secretly glad to have an attractive male companion around who wasn't Henry or Bunny – neither of them making for ideal drinking partners, nor partners in other capacities Francis desired – and at some point he'd decided to try and entice Charles into the lifestyle of the _bon vivant_ (at the very least to annoy Henry, if nothing else). 

That night the two of them had been sprawled out over Francis's luxurious four-poster bed with neglected, dog-eared tomes of Euripides perched on their laps, the bottle of Scotch changing hands between them at a – perhaps alarmingly – brisk pace. Certain details are still etched in his memory, remnants of a carefree exuberance that marked a rosier, more innocent time: their wine glasses clinking together vigorously, never depleted for too long; lengthy, spirited debates over Proust and Balzac (though not as quick and incisive in repartee as Francis, nor as polished as Henry, Charles managed to hold his own admiringly well); Charles's easy smile, vibrant gestures, luminous golden hair that swept over his eyes and that somehow grew more mussed as the hours ticked past; Francis lapsing into spontaneous bursts of song and animated recitations of French poetry (" _Enivrez-vous; enivrez-vous sans cesse! De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise..._ "). After a certain point Charles, in his inebriated state, seemed to find everything Francis said absolutely hysterical – frequently he would be doubled over at the bedside, sloshing part of his drink over his white oxford and nearly snorting out whiskey through his nose.

Francis can never remember what precisely they had been talking about before it happened. Charles was probably recounting some no doubt amusing anecdote involving him and Camilla back in their day school years, with that charming, southern-tinged accent of his. He was laughing breathlessly after every other sentence and occasionally slurring his words, his cheeks flushed with pink, eyes starrily bright and winsome. Francis had been smiling at him, reclined with an arm flung back and one side of his head sinking into a silk pillow. Every once in a while, he would languidly extend a hand to smooth the blond flyaway hairs on Charles's head back into place, or to stroke idle circles on Charles's wrist with his thumb (the significance of those stolen touches lost on Charles at first, too drunk to read any motive into them). His skin was starting to tingle faintly from both lust and intoxication, and he thought he might even be a little bit in love.

It was almost inevitable, when they ended up kissing for the first time that night. After a brief, rapturous moment Charles had shoved him back playfully and laughed it off as another joke, Francis being Francis – then saw from the latter's expression that he was quite serious. Pausing hesitantly, almost demure, he'd torn his eyes away to glance at his nearly empty glass and – after downing one last swallow of whiskey – burst out giggling, "Oh, what the _hell._ "

He'd grabbed Francis by the lapels and kissed him again, and Francis had experienced a shiver of delight in this small victory.

And then: the horrible gray morning that followed, a cloud of strained, hungover silence across the breakfast table, the two of them determinedly avoiding making eye contact. Francis nursing a searing headache, pretending not to notice as Charles (hair still disheveled, falling into his dark-rimmed eyes) groggily reached over for the pack of Alka-Seltzer, and trying not to think of how those hands had touched him so intimately the other night, or of the soreness still settled deep in his bones. Bunny cheerily ribbing them both for their taciturnity and trying to reel them into some circuitous half-argument he was having with Henry, who couldn't have cared less. Camilla saying nothing, possibly sensing their discomfort, bless her…but Francis had felt a few inexplicable pangs of guilt attributable to her presence anyway.

(Months later he would think back and wonder if she'd ever hated him in that moment, for temporarily indulging in what wasn't his, would never be his. Or if – knowing Charles's true nature – she'd simply felt sorry for him, in the way one feels sorry for a wounded animal that has found itself entangled in a snare. Sometimes when he sees the occasional, silvery flash of hunger in Charles's eyes when he looks at Camilla, Francis admits he doesn't know either, whether it is he envies or pities her.)

 

 

 

They've been lying there for some time now, arms and legs wrapped around each other, huddling for warmth. Charles's eyes are closed, his head nestled against a pillow, but Francis can tell he is still awake, evidenced by his shallow breathing. Bands of pale morning light are beginning to spill over the cocoon of blankets enveloping their tangled bodies, and Francis feels his heart finally slowing to its normal rhythm. Everything, for the moment, is still. At peace.

Charles shifts slightly against him and mumbles something that might be Francis's name. Francis sharply sucks in his breath and presses his lips (carefully, tenderly) to the top of Charles's blond head, while waiting, with a sense of apprehension, for the other shoe to drop. Splayed against the white bedsheets, Charles is all careless, radiant handsomeness, soft curves and muscles and finely delineated features. A stark contrast to himself, Francis thinks rather wistfully – all thin, bony juts and angles, a picture of frailty when undressed. Perhaps that explains why he has always been unable to resist the lure of pretty things, no matter what terrible demons might lurk beneath.

Eventually Charles sits up, blinking hazily in the low light, and gingerly extricates himself from Francis's arms and the crumpled mass of blankets. Without a word he goes to scoop up his clothes from the floor, stumbling off in the direction of Francis's bathroom. Francis pretends to have fallen asleep, heart sinking in spite of himself. He isn't quite sure why he always gives Charles an out. Idly he wonders what would happen if he actually confronted Charles one of these times...or if he asked him to stay in bed a while longer.

He hears the sound of running water in the distance and the shower turning on, followed by vigorous scrubbing. Francis takes a moment to stretch out his limbs languorously and shoulders on a bathrobe hanging on the back of a chair. He rubs at the marks Charles had left on his neck from before, shivering and trying to steer his thoughts to safer territory.

But all that comes to mind – playing over and over, like a movie reel on loop – is the clear image of Bunny's expression as realization dawns on him, his strangled, bloodcurdling scream, Charles white-faced and petrified. Camilla clutching onto her brother's arm, her face hardening into a mask of coolness. Henry's baleful eyes, never wavering in their fixed intent.

He sits with his head buried in his hands for several minutes, fighting off a sudden wave of nausea roiling inside his chest.

Charles comes padding back from the bathroom just as Francis manages to catch his breath. He is drying his hair off with one of Francis's towels, looking relatively more alert. "Good news," he announces, his voice slightly dreamy. "I think I'm finally starting to sober up."

An abrupt, foolish surge of sentiment wells up inside Francis just then, making him a little reckless. He rises, placing a firm hand on Charles's shoulder, and presses a kiss to his pale cheek. It's cool still from the shower, clammy and soft.

Charles laughs hoarsely and draws away, as chilly and brisk as an autumn wind, and for the briefest of moments just as incorporeal. "Really – you must still be drunk, Francis." His tone is deceptively light, even congenial. But Francis doesn't fail to notice the slight warning embedded in it, or the way he carefully averts his eyes. 

Something inside Francis tightens. "Sadly, no."

Charles smiles, in that gentle, patiently indulgent way that so reminds Francis of Camilla, batting off a too-forward admirer. He gives Francis a small pat on the arm, and maybe it's Francis's imagination being desperate but his hand lingers, a little too long. "C'mon, you should get dressed, too. Class starts in thirty minutes."

Francis watches Charles sail back into the bathroom and then shuts his eyes, a slow exhale escaping from his lips.

He knows how it goes. Here comes the same, pathetic refrain as always – the part where he'll tell himself, _this is the last time; you won't let yourself be fooled again._

And for a while, he'll manage to convince himself that he believes it.


End file.
